Category Archives: Learning

Simulating daylighting can be complex, though rewarding process. However it’s complexity can be a barrier for using it in design, especially early in the design process where complexity can slow the iterative nature of creative thinking.

The following tutorial shows you how to quickly and easily create a schematic level daylighting analysis. This analysis isn’t appropriate for validation of the design or for calculating exact lighting performance. While based on validated methods, the tutorial takes a very general approach to favor speed over accuracy. The results will get one a good impression of how daylighting is performing the a building, but more concentrated study later in the design process would be needed.

Note that a light meter, daylight system and conceptual materials are already included in the template file. In addition, the render and environment settings have been calibrated for conceptual daylighting analysis.

Verify Units

“Customize” menu -> “Units” -> Verify lighting at the bottom is set to “American”

This sets the lighting units to foot candles.

1 foot candle = 10.764 lux

Import Geometry

Import geometry by clicking on the 3DS Max icon in the upper left -> “Import” -> Select the appropriate option listed below:

Verify that the geometry imported to the correct scale by creating a tape measure -> In the “Command Panel” on the right, go to the “Create” tab -> “Helpers” sub-tab -> Click “Tape” -> Click and drag between two points to measure their distance -> The distance is displayed at the bottom of the “Command Panel” on the right.

Open material editor by clicking on the checkered sphere in the upper right

There are a number of materials already created that are calibrated for different real-word reflectance and transmittance. Both opaque and glazing materials are available. Please note the relevant reflectance and transmittance noted in the material names.

To see the properties of a material, double click on its title.

Assign a material to geometry by selecting the geometry -> Select a material in the material editor -> [Right-click -> Select “Assign Material to Selection”] or [just press “a” to assign the material]

Assign materials to all your geometry. If in doubt use the 50% reflectance material, it provides a good baseline.

Setting up the Daylighting System

Select the “Daylight System” it may be hiding inside your geometry so you may need to look around or you may have accidentally deleted it.

Change the location

With the Daylight System selected -> in the “Command Panel” on the right, go to the “Motion” tab -> Enter Latitude and Longitude of the site or click “Get Location” and select a city.

Changing the time and date Manually

Set the time slider at the bottom of the viewport to frame “0” (Critical, don’t change the time and date on any other frame)

With the Daylight System selected -> in the “Command Panel” on the right, go to the “Motion” tab -> Change the time and date as needed.

Using the animated sun positions

Starting at frame 1, the sun has been animated across three days of the year, the summer solstice, the fall equinox and the winter solstice.

With the Daylight System selected -> in the “Command Panel” on the right, go to the “Motion” tab -> To change the time and date, one drags the time slider at the bottom of the viewports frame by frame. Each frame will advance the time by 30 minutes as shown in the “Motion” tab on the right.

Using the time slider, set the sun to the desired time and date.

Environment & Exposure Control

In the “Rendering” menu, select “Environment” or press “8”

Scroll down to exposure control

If rendering an Illumiance study, verify Exposure control is set as follows

Exposure Control = “Pseudo Color Exposure Control”

“Active” is checked

“Process Background and Environment Maps” is checked

“Quantity” = “Illuminance”

“Style” = “Colored”

“Scale” = “Logarithmic”

“Min” = 0.0 fc

“Max” = 11000.0 fc

“Physical Scale” = 1500.0 cd

If rendering a pretty picture set exposure control as follows

Exposure Control = “mr Photographic Exposure Control”

“Active” is checked

“Process Background and Environment Maps” is unchecked

Click “Render Preview” (This will render a small image with the current render settings)

Change the “Exposure Value (EV):” up or down till the preview displays as you wish.

Rendering

In the main toolbar, click on “Render Setup” on the right side of the toolbar (icon of a teapot with a little box in the lower right). Or in the “Rendering” menu -> Select “Render Setup”. Or press “F10”

By default, Revit will display every edge of any imported meshes, however one can hide the edges in 3DS Max using the following procedure.

Hiding a Meshes Edges in Revit

Import mesh/polygon/subdivision into 3DS Max

Select the object

On the palette on the right go the “Modify” tab

Looking at the modifier stack, if the object isn’t an “Editable Mesh” -> go to the “Modifier List” pulldown -> Select “Edit Mesh“

In the tools below the modifier stack, in the “Selection” group, pick the “Edge” icon to select edge subobjects

Select all the edges

In the tools below the modifier stack, scroll down to the bottom group “Surface Properties -> Select “Invisible”

Because Revit prefers to select objects using edges (rather than faces), a few edges still need to be visible. Newer versions of Revit allow you to select by face, but it can still be an issue if you don’t have a couple of edges to select.

Select a few edges on the bottom of the object -> Select “Visible”

Turn off the “Edge” subobject select in the “Select” group

With the object selected click on the 3DS Max icon in the upper left -> “Export” -> “Export Selected”

Pick a location and file name

Change “Save as type:” => “AutoCAD (*.DXF)

Click “Save”

In the “Export to AutoCAD File” dialog change “Export Version” => “AutoCAD 2007 DXF” or “AutoCAD 2004 DXF”. The other setting don’t matter in this instance, but exporting as 2004 or 2007 does matter. For whatever reason, other DXF versions do not work.

Click “OK”

Open the exported DXF file in AutoCAD

If it worked, only the edges that you left visible will be visible.

Click on the “Layer Properties” button

Click on the “New Layer” button

Give the layer an appropriate name for the object. This will allow you to assign materials and change the lineweights for the mesh in Revit.

Change the layers color to white

Select the object -> using the layer pull down, change the object layer to the new layer

Verify that under the properites group on the Ribbon, the object color, line weight and linetype are all set to “By Layer”

Save (either as a DXF or DWG)

In Revit -> create a new family or in your project under the “Architecture” tab -> “Component” button -> “Model In-Place”. The type of family should match what the object is. Generic Models or Masses are typically good choices.

In the family -> “Insert” tab -> “Link CAD” or “Import CAD” (Link CAD will only be available in “Model In-Place” families.

Select your DXF or DWG file and place it (don’t forget to check the “Import Units” and the “Positioning”)

The mesh object will come in as an outline, with only the edges you left visible still there.

By default you can only select the object by the visible edges and the outline, you may consider toggling the “Select Elements by Face” selection filter in the lower right.

By default, Revit will display every edge of any imported meshes, however one can hide the edges in 3DS Max using the following procedure.

Hiding a Meshes Edges in Revit

Import mesh/polygon/subdivision into 3DS Max

Select the object

On the palette on the right go the “Modify” tab

Looking at the modifier stack, if the object isn’t an “Editable Mesh” -> go to the “Modifier List” pulldown -> Select “Edit Mesh“

In the tools below the modifier stack, in the “Selection” group, pick the “Edge” icon to select edge subobjects

Select all the edges

In the tools below the modifier stack, scroll down to the bottom group “Surface Properties -> Select “Invisible”

Because Revit prefers to select objects using edges (rather than faces), a few edges still need to be visible. Newer versions of Revit allow you to select by face, but it can still be an issue if you don’t have a couple of edges to select.

Select a few edges on the bottom of the object -> Select “Visible”

Turn off the “Edge” subobject select in the “Select” group

With the object selected click on the 3DS Max icon in the upper left -> “Export” -> “Export Selected”

Pick a location and file name

Change “Save as type:” => “AutoCAD (*.DXF)

Click “Save”

In the “Export to AutoCAD File” dialog change “Export Version” => “AutoCAD 2007 DXF” or “AutoCAD 2004 DXF”. The other setting don’t matter in this instance, but exporting as 2004 or 2007 does matter. For whatever reason, other DXF versions do not work.

Click “OK”

Open the exported DXF file in AutoCAD

If it worked, only the edges that you left visible will be visible.

Click on the “Layer Properties” button

Click on the “New Layer” button

Give the layer an appropriate name for the object. This will allow you to assign materials and change the lineweights for the mesh in Revit.

Change the layers color to white

Select the object -> using the layer pull down, change the object layer to the new layer

Verify that under the properites group on the Ribbon, the object color, line weight and linetype are all set to “By Layer”

Save (either as a DXF or DWG)

In Revit -> create a new family or in your project under the “Architecture” tab -> “Component” button -> “Model In-Place”. The type of family should match what the object is. Generic Models or Masses are typically good choices.

In the family -> “Insert” tab -> “Link CAD” or “Import CAD” (Link CAD will only be available in “Model In-Place” families.

Select your DXF or DWG file and place it (don’t forget to check the “Import Units” and the “Positioning”)

The mesh object will come in as an outline, with only the edges you left visible still there.

By default you can only select the object by the visible edges and the outline, you may consider toggling the “Select Elements by Face” selection filter in the lower right.

Adobe Indesign is a powerful tool for layout and presentations. The following tutorial will explain the basics of using Master Pages and Paragraph Styles to create a file ready for making a presentation.

I am sure many of you have already seen this, but I wanted to talk about it anyway. Dynamo provides a graphical way for linking and driving parametric models in Revit. While there are similar tools such a Grasshopper for Rhino, Dynamo’s real promise is bringing a graphical programming environment to a production powerhouse like Revit. I look forward to seeing how it develops.

An amazing new camera that captures “light fields” instead of 2D pictures. A light field includes depth of field and exposure information so it can be dynamically altered. In theory, one should be able to recreate the 3D objects projected through the field from the photo.

The implications for Architectural Visualization are immense. I really look forward to seeing where this technology goes.